Prison Religion

[US]

↑Photo by Daniel Mangosing.

Hardcore noise project Prison Religion, from Richmond, Virginia, is comprised of Poozy and False Prpht. Though the two are solo artists in their own right, they collaborate regularly to make collages together that are indebted yet flippant to hip hop, punk, and techno.

The duo made their biggest statement with mixtape OH FUCC IM ON THE WRONG PLANET, released in 2018 accompanied by the remix EP RESONANCE IN EXOPLANETARY HYBRIDIZATION.

Poozy and False Prpht, aka Parker Jones and Warren Black, first met in an airport in South Carolina, releasing their first mix p_ropaganda:01 in 2016, which was followed by CAGE W MIRRORED BARS, a collaboration with Crimewave, on Blackhouse Records.

OH FUCC IM ON THE WRONG PLANET displays the duo’s confrontational yet hysterical and escapist approach; they explain in an interview, “the title's this realisation that our whole situation is so fucking bizarre… We're living in Idiocracy. What the fuck is going on?”

The production destroys any notion of comfort afforded in dance music, with cold industrial and glitchy hip hop textures serving as the stylistic anchor of the record. According to Noisey, “[e]ven though it’s only six tracks, only one of which breaches three minutes, the duo manage to compress a whole lot of dread into the record’s short runtime – a reminder that space is a fruitful setting for any sort of horror-invoking media.”

Soon after the release, Prison Religion teamed up with Halcyon Veil to release a collection of remixes based on the record. Titled RESONANCE IN EXOPLANETARY HYBRIDIZATION, the EP features edits by Swan Meat, Lee Gamble, Rabit, Bonaventure, Geng, and Endgame, among others. With close ties to NON Worldwide, P_R are also ushering in a new wave of vocal-based club performance.